Latina/o/x Archives - BookDragon

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia [in Booklist]

04 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW After voicing Velvet Was the Night (2021), Gisela Chípe returns to read Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s “loosely inspired” adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau. In Yaxaktun, a remote late-19th-century ranch in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, French expat Dr. Moreau lives with his 14-year-old daughter,...

Why Didn’t You Tell Me? by Carmen Rita Wong [in Booklist]

14 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Caribbean American, Chinese American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

“‘Your life is like a telenovela!’” Carmen Rita Wong’s daughter tells her after another complication in Wong’s labyrinthine search for her biological father. Born to Dominican immigrant mother Lupe, Wong and older brother Alex called Lupe’s estranged Chinese immigrant husband, Peter Wong, “Papi.” Lupe was a...

Frizzy by Claribel A. Ortega, illustrated by Rose Bousamra [in Shelf Awareness]

18 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Caribbean American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Claribel A. Ortega (Witchlings) writes buoying books inspired by her Dominican heritage. She empathically takes on the timeless challenges of "good" and "bad" hair in Frizzy, gloriously depicted by debut illustrator Rose Bousamra. Going to the salon every Sunday is "without fail" the "worst part of the week"...

Diasporican: A Puerto Rican Cookbook by Illyanna Maisonet, photographs by Dan Liberti and Erika P. Rodriguez [in Shelf Awareness]

11 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Latina/o/x, Nonfiction, Puerto Rican, Repost

Diasporican by Illyanna Maisonet, the country's first Puerto Rican food columnist for a major newspaper (San Francisco Chronicle), is an exquisite collection of recipes for a host of mouthwatering dishes. Despite its subtitle, Maisonet insists "this is not a Puerto Rican cookbook. This book is for...

They Call Her Fregona: A Border Kid’s Poems by David Bowles [in Shelf Awareness]

06 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Latina/o/x, Mexican American, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

David Bowles continues his eloquent, autobiographical narration of the "border kid" experience in They Call Her Fregona, a captivating novel-in-verse companion to his 2019 Pura Belpré Honor book, They Call Me Güero. Joanna Padilla, the titular fregona, is a "tough girl," first introduced in Güero. After Joanna saved Güero from...

Ballad & Dagger [Outlaw Saints, Book 1] by Daniel José Older [in School Library Journal]

26 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Caribbean, Caribbean American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Lee Osorio bestows Daniel José Older’s newest series with an outstanding first volume – hopefully signaling further perfectly tuned duets. Once upon a time, the Caribbean island of San Madrigal was home to “that particularly wonderful mix of humanity ...

The Lost Dreamer [The Lost Dreamer, Book 1] by Lizz Huerta [in School Library Journal]

23 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Lizz Huerta introduces a planned duology inspired by Mesoamerican myths, in which she alternates narratives with connections revealed near book’s end. Indir is a Dreamer in a family of multigenerational Dreamers whose visions serve Alcanzeh’s kings. The newest monarch openly disdains the Dreamers, causing imbalance...

Pilar Ramirez and the Escape from Zafa [Pilar Ramirez, Book 1] by Julian Randall [in School Library Journal]

15 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Caribbean American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Repost

Escaping the Dominican Republic’s murderous Trujillo regime is how Julian Randall’s own family arrived in the United States two generations ago. His debut novel seamlessly combines that history – political and personal – with Dominican mythology for his Pilar Ramirez duology (book two publishes February...

Lunch from Home by Joshua David Stein with Niki Russ Federman, Ray Garcia, Preeti Mistry, Mina Park, illustrated by Jing Li [in Shelf Awareness]

14 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Indian American, Jewish, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Repost, South Asian American

Journalist/author Joshua David Stein (Notes from a Young Black Chef) goes back to school in Lunch from Home, a delectable celebration of comfort foods with origins from all over the world that converge in a single classroom. "This story [is] based on the lives of four...

The Family Izquierdo by Rubén Degollado [in Booklist]

30 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

Their collective story begins in McAllen, Texas, just seven miles from the U.S./Mexico border. For generations before, Octavio Izquierdo’s predecessors “used to come and go, crossing freely, still in their own country,” before an “imaginary line” delineated nations and separated families. In 1958, Octavio is claiming “a...

Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min [in Shelf Awareness]

11 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Lio Min's soulful debut novel, Beating Heart Baby, highlights music, art, and the love of family – by birth, yes, but more significantly by circumstance and choice. Their emotive narrative spotlights Filipino American artist Santi and Korean Japanese American musician Suwa, playing out a tumultuous relationship...

Body Language: Writers on Identity, Physicality, and Making Space for Ourselves edited by Nicole Chung and Matt Ortile [in Booklist]

16 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Chinese American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost, Taiwanese American, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Editors Nicole Chung (All You Can Ever Know, 2018) and Matt Ortile (The Groom Will Keep His Name, 2020) present 30 essays that reveal how diverse bodies “move within (and against) expectations of race, gender, health, and ability.” Gabrielle Bellot, a Black trans woman,...

Are We Ever Our Own by Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes [in Shelf Awareness]

12 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Cuban American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, Short Stories

The BOA Short Fiction Prize promises "collections [that] are more concerned with the artfulness of writing than the twists and turns of plot." Cuban Irish American author Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes (The Sleeping World) effortlessly displays both craft and narrative in the 11 loosely interlinked stories...

Booklist Backlist: Diverse Debut Story Collections [in Booklist]

21 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Cambodian American, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese American, Fiction, Indian American, Korean American, Laotian American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Mexican American, Pakistani American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian American, Southeast Asian American

Short-story collections can be uneven, but readers will be consistently impressed by these extraordinary, resonant, and exhilarating debuts by a dozen diverse writers. Afterparties. By Anthony Veasna So. 2021. Ecco. So’s nine electrifying stories magnificently create an interconnected Cambodian American community. The most autobiographical is “Human Development,” in...

Thirty Talks Weird Love by Alessandra Narváez Varela [in Booklist]

29 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

At 13, Anamaria is a beloved daughter, a top-performing student at an elite academy. But she lives in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico on the Texas border in 1999, threatened by looming femicide. And then Anamaria meets Thirty, who insists she’s Anamaria’s 17-years-in-the-future self. Thirty indeed talks...

Light for All by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Raúl Colón [in Shelf Awareness]

10 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Latina/o/x, Nonfiction, Repost

Young People's Poet Laureate Margarita Engle (Your Heart, My Sky) masterfully blends inspiring symbolism with sobering reality in Light for All, a picture book that both celebrates and exposes the hardships of the immigrant experience. Pura Belpré Award-winning illustrator Raúl Colón (Imagine!) splendidly fills the pages with...

Alien Nation: 36 True Tales of Immigration by Sofija Stefanovic [in Shelf Awareness]

19 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, Eastern European, European, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Repost, South Asian American, Southeast Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW The expectation of consistent quality among 36 global voices seems daunting, but editor Sofija Stefanovic admirably achieves this in a majority of these stories. Alien Nation: 36 True Tales of Immigration began on "one of the best-known stages of New York City" – the "plush...

Author Interview: Mesha Maren [in Shelf Awareness]

10 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Mesha Maren: 'Fear and Unease Can Be a Writer's Best Friend' Mesha Maren's 2019 debut, Sugar Run, took almost a decade to hit shelves. In the meantime, she published short stories in various prestigious journals (the Oxford American, the Southern Review) and won numerous prizes and fellowships (2015 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize,...

Perpetual West by Mesha Maren [in Shelf Awareness]

09 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Repost

To compress Mesha Maren's exhilarating second novel, Perpetual West, into a quick description would be an injustice to her intricately plotted, unsettling narrative about two 21-year-olds unsure of who they really are. Whereas her debut, Sugar Run, had its characters return to Maren's home landscape of rural...

Gordo by Jaime Cortez [in Shelf Awareness]

06 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, Short Stories

As a visual artist and performer, Jaime Cortez has always been telling stories. He gets literal in his debut, Gordo, an impressive collection featuring the titular Gordo, a preteen middle child of Mexican American farm workers in California's 1970s Central Coast. Gordo is one of...

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